


Riyo Chuchi: Keeper of the Keys

by AhsokaLegend



Series: Adventures in Foxiyo [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, No Beta We Die Like Clones, Post-Order 66 (Star Wars), foxiyoweek2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28412268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AhsokaLegend/pseuds/AhsokaLegend
Summary: The darkness has a mind of its own much to Riyo’s despair.ORIn the aftermath of Order 66, Riyo comes to terms with her loss and finds a way to cope.
Relationships: Riyo Chuchi/CC-1010 | Fox
Series: Adventures in Foxiyo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1911145
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26





	Riyo Chuchi: Keeper of the Keys

**Author's Note:**

> Foxiyo week 2020: Tuesday - Trust: safety, faith, protection

The darkness has a mind of its own much to Riyo’s despair. She’s pacing again, walking the length of her apartment in the dead of night. The lights are off—only the glow of the moon guides her path.

Riyo pulls her blanket tighter around herself. The more she pulls, the more trapped she feels, but that’s better than the alternative: being alone and feeling empty. 

On nights like this, Fox would stay with her. He’d wrap her in his arms, squeezing tighter and tighter as if afraid to let go.

Her pacing stops.

She should have been the one holding tighter. Now, it’s too late.

Fox is gone, or at least who he used to be. What remains is a shell of her love. Empty, why does it always come back to empty? 

She pulls her blanket tighter, her red blanket… the blanket Fox won for her. 

_CRASH_

Jumping in shock, Riyo steps away from the shards of her broken holoprojector coating the floor. 

Of all the holos to knock over, she damaged the one of her and Fox. 

Carefully, she picks up the glitching holoprojector from where it fell. The remnants of one happy memory floats across the hologram’s flickering light. Suddenly overwhelmed with memories, she lets herself be sucked into the past. 

She remembers that day fondly. It had been a beautiful summer afternoon, relative to Coruscant standards. Bending protocol, her and Fox took their lunches outside under the shelter of a secluded balcony. Shaded from the judging eyes of others, Fox’s worries melted away revealing the man she loves. It’s the little moments like that which once filled her with such peace. 

The highlight of the day was tricking Fox into making silly faces with her. Secretly, he’d liked it, though she knew he wouldn’t appreciate it being saved. 

Still, she kept the holo for herself, bringing it up whenever they were long separated or when she was in need of comfort. 

Fox didn’t know she kept it at her bedside, nor does he know she now displays it openly in her apartment. 

What’s the point of hiding it if Fox isn’t there? 

Riyo opens her eyes, finding herself drawn to the holo repeating in her hands. As she watches, Fox’s face contorts along with the glitch: smiling one moment, frowning the next, and every so often a real laugh captured between the two of them. In a life full of misery, it’s a rare spark of joy.

A sigh escapes her thinking of him. If she could only turn back time to before he was lost. Fox deserves better, had always deserved better than his allotted role in life. He is so full of love for her, for his brothers… 

Now, not even his ghost keeps her company. 

Glancing down at the holo, she can not help to compare the two. Fox, though shielded by his armor and helmet, was alive. His eyebrows would scrunch when upset, pulling his shoulders along with them. He would tilt his head in acknowledgement of every senator and wave to his brothers. But most damning of all, he would completely relax in her presence, every tightly-wound nerve and stress releasing at her touch. 

That was her first clue the shell paraded around the Guard headquarters is not her love. The ghost does not acknowledge her; the ghost does not react. This _thing_ never removes its helmet and refuses conversation, its voice dry and emotionless as a droid. 

When it passes her by in the senate halls oblivious to her presence, it’s like she’s being doused in ice water over and over again. Once, he would have given her a sign: a tilt of the head, a slowed pace, a longing touch, but not any more. 

All she has left of Fox are the memories shared between them, and even those are fading fast. She can not turn to his brothers for help. The Guard is compromised by ghosts, none of them remember.

She is the last to know Fox the man, and that scares her more than anything else. When she dies, whether a corporal or total death like her love, so too will her memories vanish.

The last traces of Fox, the last evidence of the humanity behind the mask is held by her alone.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, Riyo stands. She may be isolated more than ever; she may have lost Fox, and he himself, yet their memories still exist. When the darkness comes she will not give up those specks of light guiding her through the storm—not now, not ever.

She will protect Fox’s memories. She will protect him in the only way she can. 

Rushing into her office, she grabs some flimsi and a stylus. Her duty as a senator may be nothing more than show in this new age, but her skills remain in-tact. 

Letting the light of the moon stream through her fingers as she holds the stylus, her motivation is renewed. There is a power in her memories she alone can grasp, a power the ghosts and Emperor can not take away. 

Breathing out, she puts stylus to flimsi and writes. She writes until her hand cramps and the tears that stain the flimsi start to curl the edges in on themselves, but it doesn’t matter. She knows none of this will change fate in the end. 

Despite their hopeless situation, she presses on for Fox, for all the experiences he never lived and those moments snatched so cruelly from his future. 

His past lines these sheets, every detail, every touch and kind word bleeding with his sincerity—the sincerity of a man long-gone from this wretched planet. 

Wrapping her blanket tighter, she dreams of Fox surrounding and encouraging her to continue. The smell of his caf lingers, becoming a driving force and symbol of their bond until the end. 

One by one, Riyo transfers the pages into a new holoprojector, saving them in the feed. As each one passes through, her heart loses a fraction of the weight holding her down. 

To someone else these notes will look like diary writings, scribbles of a mad woman lost to the past. But to Riyo, to her, these stories are closer linked to stars ripped from the sky. She is the lone collector, gathering each one from its pedestal and bringing them back from the heavens. 

The last words of Fox will live on, though he is gone. She will protect his memories as he protected her, never resting and never letting go of what matters. 

Snuggling deeper into her blanket, Riyo drifts off to sleep, letting her remaining tears fall. No matter what the ghost’s actions, the true Fox, her love, will have new life in these holos. Long after her final breath, he will exist—safe and sound forever more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you guys like it! 
> 
> tumblr: @ahsokalegend


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